Chapter One
Wander was not one to point fingers in most cases. He knew if there were problems, there would bound to be solutions for them.
This problem, however, could not be fixed.
The orange nomad had been released automatically after Dominator's death, the ice melting away as if it knew it no longer had an owner to control it.
He had retracted the drill, having stalked Dominator so much to learn the majority of commands that her dashboard contained. Not that it mattered now.
Dominator was gone.
She couldn't terrorize any villages for fun. She couldn't vaporize small puppies or steal toys from any orphanages.
She couldn't hurt anyone anymore.
And Wander hates to admit it, but he would trade Dominator slaughtering every being in this whole galaxy if it meant that he'd have Sylvia back.
The nomad left the ship as quickly as possible, stumbling out to find everyone standing in shock. The bots had stopped attacking, they too having a sense that their leader is gone. Wander didn't want to see the corpse, but he felt like he had to. He would never be at peace with himself if he didn't look at his friend's face one last time.
To say the sight was traumatic would be one of the worst understatements that Wander's ever heard.
Wander was shaking. His fur, which had stiffed due to the ice, was now that damp with sweat. It couldn't be true.
The removable of the drill had repositioned both corpses as they both had went up with the retracting metal. Sylvia had her neck juxtaposed a weird angle, the insides of her stomach falling onto the dirt beneath her. Her eyes were closed but she did not look at peace.
She was dead. Her spirit, her mind, everything had left.
Dominator had fallen a short distance away from Sylvia, her helmet landing a few feet away from her head. Her frame was a lot smaller than Sylvia's, so the impact of the drill had torn her in two. The only way her torso was still in contact with her her lower body was through her large intestine, which had poured out of her body. Nothing, nothing could be a more brutal sight.
None of it felt real. Wander's heart thumped enthusiastically as he kneeled beside Sylvia's corpse. The blood soaked his knees, but that was the least of his worries. With slight hesitation, he touched her hand, feeling that the skin that was once soft was now just cold. His breath caught in his throat, the realization that Sylvia was dead had finally hit him like a punch in the gut. It was too painful to cry, too shocking to scream. Every emotion that should've been there wasn't.
He couldn't turn this around. There was nothing good that could come from this.
His chest felt heavy, but at the same time empty. He couldn't use optimism as a coping mechanism. Sylvia, his best friend, his travel buddy, his family had been taken away from him in the most merciless way possible. It was like a train wreck that he couldn't look away from. His wettened eyes were glued to her face, the expression showing nothing of pain. Her eyes were looking towards the sky, towards the direction of the weapon that killed her.
The thought made Wander feel sick.
He looked back at Dominator's body, which was an even worse sight to see in the sense of brutality. She was struck down by her own weapon, Wander gaped, her drill had tore her in two.
But he didn't even try to sympathize.
When Hater had landed from the fall, the watchdogs immediately took action. The comatose skeleton was dragged inside of the ship by his ankles, the others who came to fight watching him with worry. However, his commander didn't go with him.
Peepers stood there, observing the space nomad grieving over the death of his best friend.
The sight should fill him with joy. Wander, after years of thwarting plans and getting in the way, had finally been broken in the worst way possible. He would be easy to catch, seeing that he had no one to defend him anymore. Hater could finally conquer the galaxy and be the villain that the two of them have dreamed of for years.
But Peepers couldn't find a single reason that actually made sense.
Sure, Wander had been very, very annoying over years of knowing him, but nothing he's done in the past was worthy for a punishment this severe. Though the zbornak had beaten up the cyclops plenty of times, she wasn't all that bad to be around. Grop, he would even go far enough to say he enjoyed her presence. They were both the voice of reason when their partners began to act like idiots, so they both had a lot in common. Peepers even recalls one night that they were comparing who was worse for getting into trouble, and they both decided that it was definitely Wander.
The cyclops was genuinely saddened by the loss, but he couldn't show it. This was, in fact, a battle. There were bound to be casualties.
Sylvia was targeted specifically to break the nomad, and the fact that it actually succeeded is what made the commander sympathize with his enemy. It was safe to assume that Wander would not be able to get over this by himself.
And, though reluctantly, Peepers decided that he wouldn't have to.